Game of Thrones Season One watch-a-thon: “Winter Is Coming”

HBO does high fantasy! I see cute dire-wolf cubs, beautiful princes — omg, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is gorgeous, and I just want to eat up the kid playing Bran — dragons’ eggs, and I-dunno-what? zombie snow wraiths?

So that’s good.

I also see tons of naked women and no naked men, and women as sexual pawns in men’s games. Isn’t it funny-weird (not funny-haha) how even our fantasy reflects sad, boring reality? WTF is up with that? Can we expect HBO to take on a multimillion-dollar miniseries set on a planet that Ursula Leguin created? Or Lois McMaster Bujold? You know, a planet on which the women have at least as much agency as the men?

At least I also see hints that the women don’t like their positions — both metaphoric and, ahem, hands-and-knees literal — and that they might be gearing up to fight back.

Oh, and incest. Seriously? Cuz, you know, ewww.

If I wondered why HBO had any interest in staging a ten-episode Renaissance Festival, now I know: Game of Thrones is The Sopranos with beheadings. And lots and lots of boobies.